Colca Canyon

The Blues at Colca Canyon...(thank god for shades!!)

Colca Valley .....and......a Condor over Colca Canyon

We went from Arequipa over the mountains (4,910m at the highest point) to Colca Canyon. We felt a bit breathless and light headed with the altitude, but we were given the old Inca remedy of coca leaf tea and also coca leaves to chew on (you can buy them from the newsagents !!). We don´t know if it worked or if it was psycho sematic, but we felt better, so that´s the main thing. We stayed over, in a town called Chivay...which was bloody freezing !!! Luckily our bed had about 10 Llama hair blankets which kept us warm, but also kept us pinned to the bed, because they were so heavy. We both woke up, at about 3am, with pressure on our chest...it felt like Beni (our old cat) had come back from the grave and was sitting on us...but it was a combination of the altitude and the blankets. We felt a bit better after some deep breaths.

Next morning (at 6am) we went to Colca Valley which is an amazing sight, with terracing right down the valley and then onto Colca Canyon to see the condors which nest in the canyon. We were very lucky as we were told we might only see one or two (if any), but in fact saw about 20 in total, along with some eagles. Conditions must have perfect